


Jane Out of Water

by Mischievous_SuperNova



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Starfrost: Round 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 18:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4232097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mischievous_SuperNova/pseuds/Mischievous_SuperNova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>StarFrost exchange gift for Fourhumours: "An Outlander AU, Jane is sucked into a different time and place (doesn't have to be Scotland just vaguely historical)". Well, it's vaguely historical. Very vaguely. It's Pre-Thor...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jane Out of Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Hope this puts a smile on your face...seriously.

Her heartbeat thumped weightily in her pounding head from the abrupt increase of adrenalin coursing through her veins. It forced the organ in her chest to beat faster, instinctually preparing her body to either fight or to flee. And if fleeing had even been a real option and she had attempted it, she knew she wouldn’t have forgiven herself. So she fought the impossible, even in its futility.

The violent flash of white light blinded her with its intensity before she squeezed her eyes shut. That same instant brought searing, frigid gusts of wind that whipped her hair and bit into her skin as though going straight through the flannel layers of her clothes. She was lifted off of the ground, then tossed with fierce, unrelenting force, and she was flying, weightless as a rag doll.

She jolted awake.

* * *

Distance did not hinder the Gatekeeper’s scrutiny of Yggdrasil’s far-reaching branches. There was always something more to observe than the immediate impressions of discernible stardust configurations.

Heimdall’s Sight was not limited to the countless stars’ dances of death and rebirth as there was much more beyond plain sight that he could perceive.

In his constant, preferred solitude, he appreciated the celestial powder in its various forms, clumped or scattered, and favoured the multitude of glowing orbs as company over his fellow Aesir.

These spheres of light in their various sizes took on countless formations, and were suspended against a velvet canvas of dark-violet, indigo and kissed with hints of magenta. The delicate backdrop stretched on immeasurably before him, its contained shapes and forms intricately conveying the threats that existed.

Yet even as those luminescent, amber eyes gazed outward, they once again failed to see a certain trickster prince making his way back through an invisible tear in space.

Prince Loki discovered the tear in space in his youth. He had found it nestled within a deep, obscure cave and concealed behind a ferocious waterfall. A game of hide and seek with Thor had placed the thing in his way and he remembered how red-faced his brother had been when even after hours of searching within the agreed boundaries, Loki could still not be found. Traversing this and all such pathways always made him feel clever and no matter how many times the Thunderer bested him in training with brawn, Loki would always have this.

Even though the path to and from the threshold between the Realm Eternal and Midgard was pitch black, Loki keenly knew the way from memory. He had ventured the place countless times through the centuries – it was the only thing he had that his brother did not. But now, upon setting foot in Asgard to yet again navigate the pitch-black caves, it felt different and Loki’s carefree mood wilted.

The air that welcomed him was abnormally live with energy. It carried a magical, eerie buzz that made his skin tingle and the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

In the inky darkness, he stood stalk still, listening and sending tendrils of his own magic to probe his surroundings. Yet all he sensed was the energy from the familiar pathway behind him.

There was no evidence of any other magic than his own, yet the invisible, unnamable thing sent a chill to crawl up his spine. However, before knots of anxiety could fully form in his neck and shoulders, he reminded himself of the safety offered by his own magic’s concealing embrace. He was comforted by the fact that whatever was there would not see him there.

As he began to make his way toward the visible waterfall at the cave’s mouth, his concern was ebbing away. He was surrounded by the familiarity of his home and relished the sensation of the subtle spray of water on his face.

Loki only managed three steps before an abrupt, piecing light flashed behind him. This made him halt again, his cocky mood suddenly dampened by anxiety. He blinked, looking around, but the light was gone just as quickly as it had come. Moisture clung to him, but not from the waterfall. No, there was more than that. He surmised it was from the unmistakable, abrupt temperature drop.

Instantly thereafter, Loki felt something swiftly fly by, – at that speed it could only have been flight – and clipped him on the shoulder with a force that caused him to momentarily lose his balance. It also nearly knocked him off his feet because as the thing flew by, it must have grabbed hold of his cloak. Loki was sure he heard a distinct tearing sound in that moment.

From this he uneasily drew but one worrisome conclusion: Someone must have followed him back through his portal.

Idly, he wondered whether the thudding of his racing heart was loud enough to echo about him, betraying his concealing spell. It seemed that whoever it was could sense Loki’s presence regardless, which in turn meant he was facing another formidable sorcerer.

But that made no sense. The portal was a link to Midgard. The primitive rock had long lost its appeal to mages and sorcerers. Well, notwithstanding himself, that is. So perhaps then, he was mistaken in his assumption.

Loki bent his body and limbs into a sparring stance, his fighting instincts fully awakened. Now he would be completely prepared for another attack, his fingers poised to create defensive enchantments.

Many fleeting moments slipped by to stretch into a longer one. Loki waited to spring, expecting to be shoved aside again. But tacit blackness responded.

His own thoughts spoke in its stead.

Serves you right, Loki. You should not be here. When father finds out that you’ve been gallivanting through secret tears to other Realms without his knowledge or permission, he will bind your magic for the next century.

If he was unable to play tricks on Thor and Sif for the next one hundred years, there was not much fun to be had. Especially if his paths were to be blocked.

He told himself to focus.

Again Loki used his magic to assess his surrounds, willed his senses to become heightened. He was hearing something that might have been someone breathing heavily nearby. And if Loki had then looked down on the ground but a short distance from where he stood, he would have seen the murky outline of a slight, crumpled feminine figure.

* * *

Eir tended to the youthful female creature without a word, as Loki musingly watched in the Healing Room’s shadows. The creature had several broken bones, her silk-like skin marked in several areas with angry purple bruising. Even in this mysterious female’s vulnerable state, she reminded him of a forest sprite, wrapped the way she was in his cape (and nothing else), when he located her on the cave’s floor.

In the midst of Eir’s healing, Loki left in a nervous rush to return to the site in question. He had to find out who she was. Frigga would be asking questions – even as the sole keeper of his traversing secrets.

Not much evidence remained, except perhaps the edges of his pathway seemed more worn than usual, as though becoming tattered, like actual material that had run. It very much resembled the state of what was left of his emerald cloak. Again his mind wandered back to that creature on the healing table.

He did, however find a small band that could have been a simple piece of jewelry, even if the material looked nothing like he’d ever seen. The frustration made his jaw clench and his teeth grate. He had seen the metals of most realms, but this one, he didn’t recognize.

Upon his second step back in the Healing Rooms, a displeased Eir was in his path.

“Prince Loki, the girl is awake.” And with a brusque nod, the healer turned and walked away without waiting for a single acknowledgement. She had been asked to keep this newest patient’s presence a secret from the All-Father and it didn’t make for a happy Eir.

Loki watched the girl look about the room and as though waiting for their eyes to meet. When their gazes locked, he tentatively approached. This was the creature that had come through his pathway. She was the one who knew about his secrets and was going to expose them. He opened his mouth, ready to address her with conviction…

“Where am I?” Her voice shook but lacked no confidence.

“You don’t know?” Loki eyed her for any clues to a lie.

She shook her head, her eyes giving him a once over before they went back to her surroundings, bewilderment clouding her gaze. It seemed that her assessment did nothing to calm her nerves and her demeanor ill-suited his reservations about the threat she posed.

“Who are you?” It was the question on his tongue, but she was the one to ask it.

“You are in Asgard. And I am Prince Loki. I was the one who found you. You were severely injured.” He continued to watch her, for even a hint of a flinch, which never came.

“Asgard…Loki…” She echoed, considering those names with a trace of recognition. “That…sounds faintly familiar.”

“Does it?” He bent over her then, as if to intimidate and gauge her reaction, but he realized that even if the action was purely instinctive, it granted him no further clues.

“I’m...not sure.” She blinked, and the small light of recognition in her sepia eyes was gone.

“What is your name?” He wanted to know, but his reasons were now becoming unclear.

The girl opened her mouth to reply by reflex, but faltered when nothing came out. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes.

* * *

They stood on her balcony, watching Asgard’s sun preparing to set.

Loki smiled to himself at recalling the layers of open books about star charts all over her bed. She had pilfered the library of any books she could find: If it mentioned stars, had images of stars, she took it and gave it a new home in the room provided to her.

“Do you like the room?” Loki watched for her reaction, admiring how Asgard’s daylight star gave her light, wavy tresses a honey glint. It was difficult to believe what Eir had said. And perhaps not saying it, not telling her, would make it not real.

“It’s very nice. Something tells me it’s not the usual sort of room I’d have.” The girl smiled at him awkwardly, her cheeks reddening pleasantly. She sighed and looked over the city in silence.

“Do you remember anything?” Loki asked once he realized he had been staring at her for a moment that stretched out far too long.

“No….” She trailed off, as if in deep thought and her eyes lit up, “Oh! But there something I found!” He watched her scurry back into the room and return with the band he had found in the caves with her. “I figured out how unclasp, like this,” There was a tiny indent in the metal he hadn’t noticed that sprung open and she slipped the band on, then pressed something that brought a part of the band to light up. The area was grey and perfectly square-shaped. In the center of this field were four symbols…

…Eir was right. She was human – a mortal of Midgard, and her name was Jane. Mortals had last names. But that didn’t matter now. The only relevance was that first name. That was proof of her unfortunate heritage. The strange device proved it. But Loki played well at pretending not to have known. It was only at one of Jane’s visits to the library and her research of the Nine that she stumbled upon the only texts she could read.

But even though they both knew, neither spoke of it.

* * *

“So what should I be calling you?” His tone was playful, if not inquisitive.

Loki and Jane were seated on a hill of grass in Loki’s gardens, once again watching the evening stars make their appearance. Jane, of limited lifespan, smiled back at him, but there was a touch of sadness there, as if she knew. Perhaps one day she will tell him that she always knew he was the God of Mischief.

“Perhaps my name doesn’t matter. Does it?”

The prince sighed solemnly.

“Your name doesn’t matter. If I knew it, I would never have to speak it, but,” Loki looked into her eyes intently and became very still, pausing for effect, “it would still exist.”

There was nothing more that could be said, so they watched each other for a bit in the light of a golden moon, in silence.

* * *

Thor was to be married to a warrior maiden named Sif. Even if Jane had been invited, she would have politely declined. She didn’t belong there, among those people, to take part in that celebration. They were well matched. Both were of this realm. And both were of prominent families. Loki had said so.

Even if no one ever spoke her name, she could still never be a princess.

How could she have forgotten about that?

She tried to distract herself with unread books containing more stars, but every constellation reminded her of the second-born prince. Even if she had wanted to quench her curiosity about that strange device that flashed her name, the task would remind her of Loki. The device and makeshift tools Loki had provided were still on her bedside table.

The noise of the celebrations dissipated and she fell into fretful sleep. She convinced herself that that night, she had only dreamt that his arms were holding her.

When she awoke, blinking to the morning light, he was there, with his arms still around her. He smirked in his usual playful way, but his eyes retained a serious glint. All it took was a split second when she blinked: between them sat a golden apple. Loki's broadest, brightest smile accompanied it.

“I have brought you breakfast.”


End file.
